Keys
by moon eclipse shadows
Summary: Tsunade is starting to get tired of yet another person being sucked into the Naruto world. Konohagakure is starting to run out of room for all these fangirls. Luckily, the founders planned ahead.
1. Prologue

"You say you're from where?" Tsunade asked once again. She tapped her fingers rhythmically against her desk, using what was left of patience to keep from punching holes through the surface. In spite of that, there were already several small indentations that were steadily growing deeper.

The rather timid looking girl flinched at the annoyance in Tsunade's voice. "The…Village Hidden in the…Sand?" Tsunade looked skeptical. "I mean the Village Hidden in the Water, um I mean the Mist!" The girl's quiet voice became slightly louder, and much higher pitched with each attempt at naming a village.

Tsunade exchanged a glance with Kakashi and Shizune. The girl seemed like a very poorly trained spy, if that was what she was. It was possible that she was only maintaining the appearance of someone who was that incompetent, so it was best to keep their guard up.

It was doubtful that the girl was actually a ninja. Her brown and gold shirt seemed sensible enough, but she wore dark blue pants made out of a highly movement restrictive material. Although no one dressed in fighting attire all the time, most ninjas stayed away from clothing that would drastically hinder their fighting abilities. Even in the village attacks could come at anytime.

In addition to that she had been incredibly easy to capture. Kakashi had noticed her unusual behavior and promptly brought her in without any trouble. The most troubling aspect was how she managed to sneak into the village without anyone noticing…

Tsunade raised a single finger, which was more than enough to silence the girl. "What's your name?"

The girl looked back with large gray eyes before replying, "Charlie, I mean it's really Charlotte, but everyone calls me Charlie." She brushed a long copper curl away from her face.

Raising a hand to once again stop the girl's-Charlotte's- babbling, Tsunade tried for another question. "And Charlotte, why are you here?"

"I want to join the village?" The redhead tried, sounding quite miserable about the whole idea. She squirmed in her chair, attempting to find a more comfortable position. Unfortunately for her, these chairs were specifically designed to not be overly comfortable.

"What skills would you have to offer?" Charlotte looked completely surprised by this question. "And why would I let an unknown girl join my village? You could just be waiting for the right time to attempt an assassination." Tsunade continued, ignoring Charlotte's indignant squeak. "You don't really sound like you want to join the village," The Hokage finished wearily, the familiar pains of a headache growing steadily stronger.

Charlotte looked back with wide eyes. She glanced around the room frantically, and shrunk back even more as she glanced the stoic faces of Kakashi and Shizune. She took a deep breath. "Well…you see," There was a sort of strangled hiccupping sound right before she burst into tears. "I'm from another world," she said, words muffled due to the fact that her face was buried in her arms. "I don't know why I'm here, I was just watching an episode with my friend, she's the one who own all the DVDs and manga, and I just tried to do what I've seen in all the stories, but I don't think I'll fit in here, and nothing is going the way it's supposed to!"

Shizune caught Tsunade's eye, giving her a resigned but familiar look that. Mental ward? She mouthed, jerking her head at the girl. Tsunade started to nod, when she remembered something. A sickening feeling crept through her. It couldn't be. She shook her head at Shizune, who looked mildly surprised.

"Kakashi," Tsunade said wearily, "I want you to stay with her for the moment." She turned to Shizune to start dictating orders. "We need to contact a team to stay with Charlotte for a few days while I check over some things. Kurenai's team should be free." Shizune nodded, scribbling out a note and popping outside to hand it to a messenger. Tsunade walked over to a cabinet at the back of the room and opened one of the doors. She pulled out several keys, she handed them to Kakashi. "Our meeting is over, but I need you to escort her and wait until Kurenai or one of her team gets there."

It was always hard to tell at first glance with Kakashi, puts he seemed pretty resigned to the situation. "Let's go," he said, sparing only the briefest of glances at Charlotte.

The girl's sobs had stopped completely and she scrubbed at her eyes in an attempt to look at least somewhat presentable. Still, she seemed a bit terrified of Kakashi. She looked at him with wide eyes, nodding, and standing up so quickly she almost knocked the chair over.

Tsunade directed her next words back to Shizune. "Have Charlotte's bags brought to me." As her assistant went to complete that task, Tsunade leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples. It this was what she thought it was it could be the start of an epidemic. It was something that had occurred before, but every time it happened it got worse. She only hoped she could do as well a job of weathering this as her predecessors had.

She was going to need to buy some more sake. A _lot_ more sake.

And behind the now closed cabinet doors hundreds of golden keys shimmered.

* * *

Inspired by all the self insets you find here. Don't get me wrong, I love reading all of those stories, but one day I thought, "There's a _lot_ of people getting sucked into the Naruto world. Where do they all stay? There has to be some kind of plan for this."

I have one actual scenario for this story and several more ideas. (This is something I came up with a looong time ago, but only recently rediscovered on a previously lost flash drive. So it might be a _little_ dated. Forgive me)


	2. Sometimes They're Cats

Sakura couldn't help but adore the kitten.

It was tiny and fluffy with brown striped fur. It gazed up at her with the cutest green eyes she had ever seen.

"Where did you even come from?" she asked, bemused. The kitten just mewed back pitifully. She picked it up, grinning at the way the kitten started purring loud enough to be heard from several feet away. The forest was certainly no place for a kitten.

So she took it with her. "I wonder what I'll call you," she muttered offhandedly.

She was stopped, unusually, at the gate. "Where did you get that?" The guard asked suspiciously. It was someone that she knew vaguely, but just by sight. For the life of her she couldn't remember his name.

"It was just in the forest," Sakura said slowly. "Is there something wrong?" The kitten cowered against her.

"All new arrivals have to go through Inventory," the man said wearily, flipping a kunai through the air and catching it.

"It's a _kitten_." Sakura said. "It's not even technically a new arrival."

"Provision 38.6b was put into circulation 3 weeks ago and clearly states…" the man began.

"All right, I get it!" Sakura said hurriedly, holding up a hand as if to physically stop his words. She lightly rested her fingers against her forehead, while still cradling the fluffy brown kitten in her other hand. "Where do I go?"

The office wasn't too hard to find. It was near Tsunade's and clearly marked with a couple different signs.

"Didn't this used to be a storage room?" Sakura asked herself. She could quite clearly remember this room, and several others, being filled to the brim with paperwork.

"Hello?" She called out, poking her head into the room. She looked around the room appreciatively. This was indeed an old storage room, but now it was been mostly cleared out and organized. There were still tons of paper, but they were neatly contained in the numerous file cabinets that served as makeshift dividers for the room.

She wondered what had happened to the place. After all, there was no way Tsunade had done any of this. And there didn't seem to be anyone around, she thought scanning the area, stopping when she saw one familiar face.

"Sasuke!" she called out, walking over. "What are you doing here?"

Sasuke had finally become a Konoha citizen again and was on his way to acting as a shinobi once again. Sakura was only just getting used to seeing him on a regular basis, and accepting that he was here to stay. Not that it wasn't something she had always hoped for, but it had been hard to push that nagging, worrying voice to the back of her mind. It was only now that she was succeeding.

"Something about 'damage control,'" Sasuke replied distractedly, glancing up once at Sakura, but then returning to study the papers he had in front of him. He looked up again once the meowing started. "What is _that_?"

Sakura had to resist rolling her eyes. Hadn't anyone in this village seen a cat before? "It's a kitten," she explained in an overly patient tone. "See?" she shoved the small animal at him.

Sasuke had no choice but to accept the kitten and held it up gingerly. His façade of disinterest cracked for a moment as he started into its eyes, and his own eyes softened as the corners of his mouth twitched in what could potentially be the beginnings of a smile.

"So once you read those over I have a couple of things for you to sign before we start discussing strategy," a voice said, drifting from behind a particularly tall file cabinet. Sakura watched as a small girl, probably around her own age of 17, appeared, carrying a stack of papers high enough to block the view of her head.

The papers were dropped onto a nearby table with a loud thump, and Sakura finally got a glimpse of the girl. She was pale and freckled, with long curly copper hair.

She starred at Sakura for a moment with dark gray eyes behind delicate looking glasses, making Sakura shift uncomfortably. Then she shook her head and held out a hand, "Hello, I'm Charlotte…" she began with a smile, trailing off at the end as she saw Sasuke and the kitten.

"No! Bad!" she said, walking swiftly over to the Uchiha, fumbling around in a pocket and coming out with a small spray bottle.

Sakura watched, very confused, but also a bit entertained at what was happening.

Because Charlotte proceeded to liberally spray both Sasuke and the kitten with the spray bottle. They both had the same first reaction, a mix of confusion and horror.

It was obvious that this was a first for Sasuke, but as he was getting over the shock his eyes began to glint dangerously. "What was that?" he asked softly, the tone of his voice menacing.

Instead of answering Charlotte scooped the kitten out of Sasuke's arms. Sasuke looked at the kitten now as if he was unsure of how it got there. "You have to be careful of these," the girl said firmly. "Even when they don't mean to they can bring out an instant attachment." She looked at the kitten fondly, before carrying it to the desk and plopping it down.

"You are human, right?" Charlotte asked. The kitten looked at her with large innocent eyes, but after being stared at rather sternly it nodded sadly. "Don't worry, we'll help you return to human form and get you back to where you came from. Just sign this form, and for now you'll be placed in a halfway home with others like you." The kitten looked at her with shock. Charlotte just slipped a paper from the pile and placed it down with an inkpad. "This will be explained later, for now just sign here." The kitten, looking resigned, placed a small ink paw print on the line indicated.

It then walked miserably into a waiting cat carrier that Charlotte fetched from somewhere behind the file cabinets.

Sakura voiced her protests. "That's my cat…" she said weakly.

"And maybe you can take care of her once you've gone through the proper training," Charlotte said. "You might not want to though, they can be quite the commitment."

"Cats?" Sakura asked bewilderedly.

"No," Charlotte said. "Fangirls."

 **This was slightly inspired by several stories around here, most of which I enjoyed reading, but I wanted another perspective on it. :)**

 **This is the last piece that I already had written. I had enjoyed the premise and wanted to get it out there, but I cannot be certain of any future updates, so I will be marking this as complete.**

 **Just in case you were interested, these were some of my other ideas for future chapters.**

 **-a "twin" to a cannon character appears, may affect cannon character**

 **-cannon character doppelgänger appears insisting they are the actual character.**

 **-The Akatsuki start to have their own troubles. Sometimes the fan girls may meet a quick ( and possibly unintended) death. Sometimes they get put to work. Meanwhile Charlotte has become something of an expert "fangirl wrangler" and as the Akatsuki become overwhelmed they kidnap her to take care of their problem.**


End file.
